Yesterday morning our temp was hovering around freezing in the morning. As the morning went on it warmed up to the mid 50's. The wind was blowing around 30mph. There was a cold front that was coming through last night so we were hunting hard thinking that the deer would moving in front of the cold front. We were wrong! No deer! However, even though our lows are hovering around freezing, there was something moving, snakes. On the way back to our shop we ran over one of the biggest cotton mouth snakes I have seen in a long time. This disturbs me for several reasons. The first being the obvious, the second being if those snakes are then that means rattle snakes and copperheads are out. Rattlers and cotton mouths do not bother me. Cotton mouths hold near water and swamps, and rattlers usually will give a warning before striking. Copperheads however scare the poo out of me. These things are the exact color of forest floors and love to get in a pile of oak leaves and hide. They love to sit in nooks of low trees where leaves fall and is head level. Their venom will mess you up more than either of the previous two. It is December, I should not have to worry about snakes, but I do. Our temps today are cold for here, low 20's at night and below 40 during day. However towards the end of the week our temps will warm to the upper 50's again and lows in upper 30's. Good snake boots and great wool socks are going to be worn until January this year.
I am 38 and when I was a kid, we never had to worry about snakes after the end of September! I am not a believer in global warming but our weather now is so up and down. Also this has been driest year ever that I can remember. We used to have stretches of wet weather. Axwhole week of cloudy, wet, cold weather during the winter. Now if we get two days in a row it is a treat. I am sick of sunshine!!!!
me & my daddy was cutting right of ways down around charlotte years back and my daddy went to cut the top out of the tree we just fell and there was a old hollow log and daddy stepped across it when he did a copperhead hit him on his right hand where he was carrying the chain saw.it happened in a split second. He was wearing chaps and snake boots.he suffered temporary blindness for almost a week and high fever!
That would freak me out, too (snakes at my trees). I laugh when people say they killed a cotton mouth, around here. There are none (you have to go E to find them in NC). Now....about those Copperheads.....lol. My father in law killed one last summer that was over 41" long. That's a HOSS copperhead. Last I heard, his hide is the backing on a friend's traditional bow he made. I need to get a photo of that.
I would love to know how to tan a snake hide. We need to make the hides worth something and then people will hunt then to extinction, at which point I will throw a party!
